Beet & Hearts of Palm Salad

Clean the beets and wrap them in foil. Roast them in the oven at 350 degrees, for about 30 minutes. They’re done when you can push a skewer through them quite easily – but not too easily! There are two reasons that we use foil and don’t roast the beets on an open tray. First, they caramelize better in foil; and second they don’t dry out.  And they don’t make a terrible mess in the pan.  When the beets have cooled enough to handle, slip off the peels.

You’ll need:

½ pound roasted beets, baby beets if you can find them
1 8 oz. can hearts of palm
3 green onions
12 cherry tomatoes
Extra virgin olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Red lettuce leaves
2 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

What you do:

When the beets have cooled enough to handle, rube the peels off, quarter them (or, if they’re not baby beets, cut them into half inch chunks). Drizzle them with olive oil.

Slice the hearts of palm into rings of equal thickness.  Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves or quarters and slice the green onions.

Combine the hearts of palm, green onions and cherry tomatoes in a salad bowl and season with salt and pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  (If you combine the beets at this stage the entire salad will be stained red.

Place a couple of red lettuce leaves on a plate.  Sprinkle some of the seasoned beets on the lettuce.  Add the hearts of palm mixture and then crumble the blue cheese on top.